Perfect Ten: The biggest MMORPG news stories of 2015

For as long as Massively Overpowered exists, this will be one of the most memorable years in our site’s history. It was the year that, after seven year of operation, old Massively got abruptly shuttered by AOL along with Joystiq and WoW Insider. It was also the year that the community rallied around us and Kickstarted the hell out of a new site, giving us the chance to create MOP as an independent MMO entity.

2015 will no doubt be remembered for a lot of other things too, of course. I don’t think anyone could have predicted all of the craziness and unexpected turns that happened in our genre over the past 12 months. Let’s take a walk back through the year-that-was to cover the biggest, strangest, and most exciting stories that we covered.

2. Crowfall dominated Kickstarter

One of the earliest stories of the year revolved around a new MMO IP named Crowfall that was being developed as primarily a PvP game. Veteran developers spent weeks building up to a Kickstarter campaign before launching a textbook-perfect campaign. After asking for $800,000 in funds to get the ball rolling, fans stepped up with almost a million more than that. Since then, Crowfall has remained on our radar and is taking steps to putting out a pre-alpha test in the near future.

3. Guild Wars 2 offered its base game for free

ArenaNet took command of a panel at PAX Prime and didn’t waste the opportunity, announcing that it would be making the base (non-expansion) Guild Wars 2 game free as of that night. It’s certainly debatable how much that helped the game, especially considering some of the restrictions that came with the free model, but it was sudden, surprising, and somewhat welcome for those who had been wanting to try out the game.

4. Subscription MMOs fled to other models

Speaking on the opposite end of the spectrum of surprising, two MMOs that stubbornly launched with subscriptions only in 2014 both switched to more accessible models this year. Elder Scrolls Online embraced the pay-once-play-forever format that echoed its offline brethren while churning out DLC and cash shop items to keep the revenue flowing. The title also finally launched on consoles in early summer, although it wasn’t as big of a splash as many anticipated.

Meanwhile, WildStar announced in May that it would be going the free-to-play route later in the fall. Several months of testing later, and the game’s new business model and large content update came out, flooding the servers with so many players that the game was almost unplayable for a week afterward.

8. Early access continued to reign

The concept and popularity of early access for games — including MMOs — wasn’t new to 2015, but it certainly didn’t wane this year either. Titles such as H1Z1 and ARK: Survival Evolved made big bucks and racked up thousands of players despite being only half-baked.

9. Blade and Soul announced its western launch

For just the longest time, MMO players had been clamoring for NCsoft to bring Blade and Soul to the west. After all seemed lost in that department, the company finally announced that it would be adapting the wuxia title to the west in January 2016. Excitement over this game might not be what it was a year or two ago, but there’s still a crowd out there waiting to get their hands on what Blade and Soul has to offer. How big of a crowd? We’ll be seeing in January.

10. A few MMOs launched and very few closed

As I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t the biggest year for MMO launches or cancellations. The two biggest titles to come out in 2015 were Trove and Skyforge, perhaps followed by by Devilian. Cabal II is on the list as well, but if we’re going there then you know we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for more entries.

While plenty of small fry met their end this year, 2015 actually had fewer shutdowns of big-name games than in years previous. Dragon’s Prophet was retired in North America and Infinite Crisis wrapped up its run shortly after its launch. And… that was it, really, unless you want to quibble about games like Archlord 2, Raiderz, and Face of Mankind.

Of course, that’s not all the news that happened this year. You know it was an interesting run when even some high-profile space game vs. space game drama didn’t make a top 10 list. So what stories interested you this year?

Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.”

I was more surprised WoW went back UP to 10000000 players. Demonstrates that for all its faults people still come back to it.
I feel sad for those working for SOE/daybreak. My guess is they are having it tough.

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4 years ago

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ausj3w3l

bondoboblives Armsbend Damonvile wasteland 2 and divinity as well

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4 years ago

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BigJohnny1982

Destiny is not an MMO, and if any game did well with Kickstarter this year it was SC, not crowfall.

It has to be all the SOE/DBG fiascos. I mean seriously it actually lasted all year. All the games they torpedoed, the promises they made with Landmark and H1Z1 that never materialized, going back to the drawing board for the 4th? time with Neverquest Next. All the Lizard Squad/Smedley drama. And finally the early access milking of their games.

The only thing that seems to be succeeding is their everquest progression servers.

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4 years ago

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breetoplay

Armsbend Damonvile I can’t remember the last time someone didn’t say that. Literally, every single year as far back as I’ve been MMOing, someone says this.

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4 years ago

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Armsbend

Damonvile 2014-2015 were horrible for all of gaming.

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4 years ago

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Ironwu

Sony selling SOE. Nothing else even comes close.
Then, the subsequent gutting of the heart and soul of the new DGC.
RIP SOE.

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4 years ago

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Siphaed

The GW2 base game F2P thing would have been a surprise, had IGN not completely botched their press release date for the announcement.